Dry Roasted

(Day 109 of 112)

Important lessons learnt today –

1. Never park your car where there is no shade from the sun.
2. Never get into a car that has been standing where there is no shade from the sun.
3. If you do have to get into aforementioned car, try not to get into contact with the leather seats (note: don’t have leather seats).
4. If you do all the above three, be smart – don’t touch the steering wheel, gear stick and/or the handbrake. Just sit there willing the air conditioning to kick in before you reach your destination looking like you’ve just spent an hour in a sauna!
5. And most importantly, and for this I blame the Fellow - never, ever, ever, have a black car if you’re going to be living in camel-land.

Obviously, I’ve been through this for me to be ranting about it here. In fact, I have to emphasise that the actual experience was about a hundred times worse than it seems. Kind of like going to the dentist – the actual experience is so much worse than what you imagine it to be!

The 15 mins that I spent in my car today was as close to hot, burning hell as I’ll ever be, before popping it for good (I really don’t have any delusions about not going to hell. Too many friends will be there!). The very act of sitting in the drivers seat made me shudder and go ‘ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch’ (the word most used in the next few minutes. Well, actually, second most used. The first is too inappropriate for here). And then there was the super-heated steering wheel and gear stick!! I quite literally had to use my fingertips to steer and change gears because the rest of my hand felt like it was blistering!

And don’t even get me started on the airconditioning! It was non-existent. By the time the car cooled down enough for me to stop cursing, I had reached my destination (I miss Bombay at times like these really). And even then, the first thing I did was to mop my face up and get the sweat out of my eyes. The next, to shake my fist at the black car and the universe.

But I’m guessing, that 15 mins in that sauna of a car must have resulted in at least a kilo of weight loss. Bring on the ice cream I say. And a can of white car paint.

This Feeling I Have

(Day 105 of 112)

As the days pass by, and the countdown (or countup) gets closer to the end, there are a multitude of feelings in me, that are making my head a very annoying place to be in right now. I don’t know which way to think and this is leaving me standing all confused and lost in the middle of my own head.

To begin with, there is the excitement. Obviously. I am super-thrilled to finally be with the Fellow again and can barely stop grinning whenever someone mentions the name of the town he is in right now.

Then there is the worry – about all the packing and travelling I have to do. Not that I’m afraid of either. It’s just that I’m a little (and I make an understatement here) fed up of living out of a suitcase and dread the idea of packing. Then there is the travelling. Both trains I have to take are at 6 in the morning and my worry is about waking up in time to catch them. And even if I do wake up, I just hope I’m lucid enough to carry my bags and walk without support! 6am. Godforsaken hour I tell you.

Add to all of this, increasing panic, about all the work I have to finish, before I can go waltzing off to the Fellow and at least a fortnight of no productivity. I complained about this yesterday and nothing has changed today. Except that I’ve slept a little lesser. And I get cranky when I do that – sleep less that is.

This crankiness is made worse with the damn furnace that I’m living in right now. The universe seriously doesn’t like me and global warming has done the rest. And so instead of experiencing a cool pre-winter, it’s back to the summer and seriously torturous temperatures of 45 deg C! How is one to achieve any work in this kind of weather I ask you?

And so, this feeling I have, is of extreme conflict. The excitement in me is fighting to stay afloat amidst the worry, panic, crankiness and of course the heat. But I have a sinking feeling that it’s a lost cause. All I can do now, is wait it out and hope that the Fellow can sort it all for me!

Radiation

(Day 94 of 112)

I’m done with complaining about the cold. It’s time to crib about the heat – or at least mention the unfortunate way in which my body is protesting against this dry heat oven I’ve put it in.

An hour or so after getting home, unpacking goodies, stuffing my face with rajma-chawal and calling various people and letting them know I’m back (wee-hoo), I stopped to collapse, down about a liter of water and pour another half on my head. The refreshing, cool water flowing down my face felt really good. But in about 30 seconds my face was totally dry. Like a sun-dried tomato. In fact apart from the wrinkles, that’s how I was looking – bright red.

This sudden shift from mountain chill to desert heat is making my face as red as a tomato/Rudolph’s nose and/or a monkey’s face. People standing next to me can literally feel the heat radiating from my face. I’m going about the house with a napkin soaked in cold water swathed around my head and neck, only to find the napkin heating up and my face seeming a fresher and brighter red!

Additionally my grandmother has been giving me weird looks all evening as I sat watching TV from behind my cold cloth cover. She also kept telling me to go switch on the aircon in the other room and stop groaning like I was dying.

Me thinks she was just trying to reign supreme on the remote control. Meanwhile the dying…uh…groaning continues. As does the heat. Sigh.